Friday, February 12, 2010

Welcome to the Nest's Halfway House facility in Nairobi. It complements the mission of the Limuru facility, where the children of imprisoned moms stay. When the women are released from prison, they come to the Halfway House for several weeks. Their children join them here, and the families are re-integrated in a safe setting. Here the women can learn better childcare skills, improve their English, and take life-skills classes. They also find community with other women who understand their life struggles.

Besides providing care for the prison women and their children, the Nest also provides care for babies who are truly classified as orphans, and are therefore adoptable. The Nest does not make adoption the centerpiece of its mission, but it goes to great lengths to support more than 30 adoptions a year,

When the Halfway House opened in 2006, the orphan babies were moved from the Limuru facility to the Halfway House in Nairobi. This was good for several reasons: the warmer, drier climate made for better health among the babies; they became more visable and accessible, and that has increased the number of adoptions; and it relieved the crowding at the Nest in Limuru. But now, as the Halfway House is operating at full-capacity, it is very crowded for the babies and their caregivers. This limits the number of orphans they can care for at one time.

What to do with these darling babies?!

In 2007 the Nest purchased a piece of land near the Halfway House. Over time the vision has emerged for the use of this land. The Nest would like to build a dedicated baby nursery and proper staff quarters for the caretakers of the babies. They would be able to increase the number of orphaned babies that they can care for at one time to 25, and this would ease the problem of crowding at the Halfway House. Each of the three properties would have a distinct mission: The Nest in Limuru serving the prison children; the Halfway House serving the prison mom's as they are released from prison; the baby nursery serving the orphaned babies.

The second phase of the development of this land would be to build 10 guest cottages. The cottages would be available to rent, and would provide accessible housing to the many European families that relocate to Nairobi while they go through the proceedings of an international adoption. The income generated by the cottages would help support the operating costs of the Nest. Greater self-sustainability would allow the Nest to spend less human resources fund-raising, and apply more human resources toward doing social work with the prison moms and their children.

Recall Irene Baumgartner, director of the Nest Children's Home. Her passion is to work directly with the clients of the Nest. However, for many years much of her energy has been spent fund-raising and developing the Nest's properties to maximize their ability to serve their clients. This property will bring the vision to completion. We at Saba, International call on you to pray for the Nest, for the development of this property, and for all the staff who labor sacrificially day-by-day!

If you would be interested in financially supporting the development of the baby nursery or any aspect of the work of the Nest, please write "Nest Nursery" on the memo line of your check, and make payable to: